He knew that he must move carefully into her thoughts. "I understand how that can be," he said, after a pause. "There was a place in Idaho that used to make me choke every time I passed it; I never knew why, until one day an English fellow happened to say as we rode by, 'Jove, there must be trout in that brook!' Then I knew it made me homesick, because every boy has something in him that makes him want to fish. I had wanted to, worst sort, when I was a youngster—though I was born in an inland city, and never had a chance to. It just made me homesick for the boyhood I ought to have had!"
Rosamund looked at him in amazement. Subtlety and imagination from Flood she had never foreseen; her own imagination was fired at once, and her face flushed a little with shame at what she had thought of him before. Flood looked straight ahead, but he was more keenly aware of the girl beside him than she of him. His heart was pounding as if he were setting out on a race; and indeed he beheld a stake before him as clearly as ever in his life. She answered, and he knew that he had scored; at last he had made her aware of him!
So well had they progressed by the time they had got back to town that he felt he could dare to say, before he left her, "I want to know those Maryland and Virginia woods of yours better, myself."
He wondered afterwards whether he had said too much.
After the Westchester afternoon there were two dinners with Flood as host; and do what she would, she could not altogether escape his daily, almost hourly attentions, without wounding his feelings and her own. He did nothing she might not accept without in the least seeming to bind herself by any obligation; the very intensity of his love urged him to caution. But when he suggested to Cecilia that, since her sister had decided to go down by train, he should perhaps be going as far as Washington on the same day, he would have divined Cecilia better if he had not been so absorbed in his dreams of Rosamund; for Mrs. Maxwell's ambitions had enlarged since early summer, and she did not hesitate to divulge his plan. Rosamund was to have taken the Congressional; instead, she slipped away at nine o'clock; so anxious was she to put distance between herself and Flood, that she would not even wait for Eleanor.
On the way down, she wondered at something in Cecilia's expression when she had made known her intention of running away from Flood's companionship, but there was too much else in her mind to permit of her spending much thought upon those she had just left; there was a warmth in her heart as of the traveler's returning to the land of his affection. She had called New York her home for most of her life, and lived in the mountains three months; yet behind her she left little that she loved, and before her lay smiling fields of imagination; and she found the vision sweet. She planned the placing of the furniture in the little house, made out a list of the things that should go in each room, and wondered what she had forgotten. She was carrying little presents back with her, and she took them out of her bag, opened their boxes to make sure they were quite right, put them back into their wrappings, and with the pencil on her chatelaine wrote messages on each. Only for Ogilvie she had no gift; she had spent more time in hunting something for him than in choosing her dining-room furniture, and had come away with—nothing! There was really nothing in all New York that she could take back to the doctor!
When he met her at the little station in the October darkness of early evening, she looked about for Yetta and Tim.
"I thought you would bring the children to welcome me!" she exclaimed, and was glad that she had it to say.
But the doctor, who was walking beside her with her small hand bag, only said, quietly, "No, you didn't!" and Rosamund's cheeks burned as he helped her to her place behind White Rosy.
He asked her about her days in the city, but she had little to say of them; what interested her now was the new home she was going to make. As they approached it she peered through the darkness at the little brown cottage, and they stopped for a moment to make sure that Mother Cary's light could be seen from there. She told him that Mrs. Reeves was going to be with her, and that she had arranged with the Charities to keep Timmy for a while longer; of the possible adoption she said nothing, having bound Eleanor also to silence, ignoring the question in his eyes. When she spoke of her hope of having Grace live with them, the doctor's face became grave.
"It would be the best thing in the world for Grace, in one way, and perhaps for you; but—I am not thinking of anything specific—but Joe Tobet, if angered, might be a dangerous enemy. If he should resent Grace's defection, and blame it on you——"
Rosamund laughed. "Oh, but I am not in the least afraid of any Joe Tobets, you know!" she said. "What on earth could he do to me?"
"I suppose you mean what could a man of his class do to injure a woman of yours?"
Her face flushed a little. "Well, what if I do?"
"I think you'd find that he is unaware of class distinctions. He certainly would not regard them. He might be vindictive; he might make all sorts of trouble for you, and is sure to for Grace."
"Oh, but that's just the point! I want to protect her from him!"
"It is not your place to!" But then he turned towards her, and she knew he smiled through the darkness. "Play Lady Bountiful, if you will, but do take my advice and let poor Grace work out her own salvation."
She had no answering smile. "Oh," she said, "I thought you were above such phrases."
"Well, I thought so, too; but I'm not above anything when it's a question of danger to—you."
The slight deepening of his tone was enough to make her hold her breath; but she would not let emotion affect her desire to make her intention clear to him.
"I do not believe there is any danger," she said, "but if there is I think I cannot regard it. I—I am not sure I can make you understand—but I want to! It is not just an idle whim that makes me stay here this winter; it is not because I am tired of other things, things I've always had. I have been restless, I confess, but it is not restlessness that has made me decide to stay here. I have no theories of life. I'm afraid I've rather scorned the people who have; but somehow I know that I have something to do here. I cherish the belief that I have. I have never had any special thing to do, before, you see! So even if I knew that there was danger in my living in that little brown house, and having poor Grace with me, I should ignore the danger, because—well, because there is something for me to do here, and I am going to try to do it."
They were down in the valley by this time, Mother Cary's lamp twinkling far above them; there was light enough from the starlit sky for her to see that he had taken off his old cap, worn out of deference to her arrival, and that he ran his fingers backward through his hair, as always when he was troubled. He did not reply until they turned into the shadow of the wooded road and Rosy was climbing the last half mile of their drive.
"God knows, there's work a-plenty for every comer," he said. "It is not for me to tell you to keep out of it. But I hadn't thought of it in that way—for you."
"Perhaps I ought to tell you," she said, "that I can help in another way. I have heard Mother Cary talk about the people farther back in the mountains—the people you see, but that only come out, she says, when the 'summer folks' are gone. Grace has told me about them, too. I—I have some money at my disposal—I know where I can get a good deal. I thought perhaps you might—and Grace—use it in some way—you would know how, wouldn't you?"
The thought of her deception, if such it was, made her hesitate in her speech; but her disappointment was quick and keen that he did not at once accept her suggestion. When at last he spoke, his voice sounded tired, and she did not understand his answer until she had pondered it that night in her own room at Mother Cary's.
"I am afraid," he said, "that even with what you think is a good deal, we should need another miracle of the loaves and fishes."
In the weeks before they moved into the cottage, there were moments when life presented itself to Rosamund in more difficult guise than she had dreamed it ever wore. Hitherto, it had been easy enough for her to take up her abode in one place or another, as fancy led her; in New York, in Georgia, in Europe, there were always people to smooth the way—servants to make everything ready and comfortable, mother or sister or one person or another to set in motion the many wheels of the household clockwork. She had never given a thought to the machinery of life; it had seemed as simple as to breathe the free air. Not even Cecilia's warnings had touched upon the rudimentary difficulties she found she had to meet. Before the furniture arrived, there was the first cleaning of the little house to be done, and no one to do it! The summer people and their servants had departed; the hotels were closed; the mountaineers held themselves haughtily aloof from domestic service. Eleanor would have known, but Mrs. Hetherbee kept her from day to day; and Aunt Sue was taking her own time in leaving Georgia. Grace Tobet and Yetta were always ready to do what they could, but they were as untrained as Rosamund herself in the methods of doing things as she had been used to having them. Yet they were the only ones she could find to help her, and she spent her days in a toil so unaccustomed as to leave her breaking with fatigue. She was ashamed to find how inadequate she was for such elemental things; and disgust at her own limitations, added to aching fatigue of body, left her little able to stand against the opposition she was beginning to encounter from everyone.
Pa Cary, gentlest of souls, became set in disapproval as firmly as the doctor; and some undivulged, disquieting information increased Ogilvie's first distrust of the plan. At last even Mother Cary somewhat shamefacedly agreed with them.
"I don't know as it wouldn't be better to shut up the house and stay right here with us, honey," she said. "Pap keeps tellin' me it ain't safe for ye there alone, jest women and children. I reckon that colored man wouldn't skeer anybody off. There's rough people in the mountings. They're used to folks summerin' here; but Pap says, what with all this talk of the Gov'ment's men bein' around, some are sayin' you know too much about the doin's o' this part of the country."
Rosamund knew the futility of expressing her indignation. She only felt that her die was cast, arrangements irrevocably made, that she must go on. Surely it was innocent enough to spend a winter in the mountains, to keep a waif of a girl out of harm's way, and give healing happiness to a child and a beloved woman. That her heart held other motive only the secret flaming of her cheeks attested. She told herself that the mountain people could not be so foolish as to disbelieve their own senses, and determined to prove herself to them. In time they must come to believe in her honesty and sincerity of purpose, in her friendship for them and her loyalty. It was largely their distrust of the world beyond their close horizon that held them in bondage to their own passions. To enlighten them, to free them, would be well worth while for anyone. She said as much to Ogilvie, who nevertheless continued to shake his head and warn her.
With the departure of the last "foreigner" the mountaineers were more frequently seen. During the summer Rosamund and Yetta had walked miles on the strange, dimly marked paths through the woods, paths as vague and deserted as if trodden only by timid wild feet trembling towards secret drinking places; never had they met another soul upon them. But now, occasionally, they encountered lank women or timid children, who peered with half-frightened eyes out of the depths of slat bonnets, and sometimes said "howdy" in passing. The Allen children no longer ran away at sight of her, and their mother, now well enough to be about the house, watched eagerly for Rosamund's visits; she had hopes of making more friends among the women, through Mrs. Allen and Grace Tobet. Several times, too, Mother Cary had visitors; and a little school in the valley drew children from the hillsides in varying numbers. As she went back and forth between the little brown house and the Carys', the people she passed stared at her curiously; the women, she thought, were not unfriendly, but the men seemed distrustful and surly.
"Why do they look at me in that way?" she asked Grace Tobet, on an afternoon when they were hastening homeward in the twilight. "The men all look at me as if I were some hateful thing—a spy, perhaps, or a—a snake! It hurts me to have them look at me in that way! No one ever did before! I don't deserve it!"
But before Grace could reply a thing happened that hurt Rosamund far more, that shook her to the depths of her pride and courage. Something struck her upon the arm, something that stung and bruised—a stone, thrown from the wood-side bushes with accurate aim. She cried out with physical pain and pain that was also mental, and sprang towards Grace. Someone moved off up the mountain, careless of the crackling undergrowth.
Grace had her arms about Rosamund on the instant, and her answering cry was almost as quick.
"What is it? What ails ye?" she besought the trembling one within her sheltering arms.
Rosamund's breath was coming in little sobbing gasps. "Oh—o—oh! Something—struck me—a stone, I think!"
From the wan spiritless creature that she usually was, Grace flashed into a wild passion of anger. Often before she had reminded Rosamund of a sodden leaf, wind-blown and colorless; now she was a flame, vivid, devouring, like the hot blasts that mow down the mountain forests.
"I'll KILL anyone that harms ye!" she cried; and raising her voice to a shriek called to the woods that hid the thrower of the stone:
"Come out! Come out in the open! Coward! Ye coward! Come out here and let yerself be seen!"
A jeering laugh answered, and Grace would have sprung in pursuit; but Rosamund grasped her.
"No, no!" she cried. "Don't, Grace! Don't! Let him go!"
The mountain woman, panting, fiery, would have broken away from the restraining hands; but Rosamund, inspired, cried:
"You wouldn't leave me here alone?"
And as a forest creature, quick to defend her young, is quick to caress, Grace forebore vengeance to hold her friend in a closer embrace.
"He struck ye! You come up here to live with us, and make friends with us, like Doctor Ogilvie, and they go and say you spy out on them! Oh—" her voice echoed from the mountains—"I'll KILL anyone that harms ye!"
"Don't say that! Perhaps he did not mean to——"
"He meant it, whoever it was! Stones don't fly up from the ground, do they? I know—I know what they say, the lazy cowards—I know, I've heerd 'em——"
She paused; a new terror came into her eyes. "Miss Rose! Miss Rose! Don't ye go thinkin' 'twas Joe throwed——"
Suddenly her head dropped upon Rosamund's shoulder, and the straining arms held her more closely. "Miss Rose, even if 'twas Joe——"
"Grace! Oh, hush! You don't know what you are saying! You must not think that—it couldn't be true!"
"Couldn't it? You never saw my baby.Hecame home drunk, 'struck by lightnin''—that's what they call it, so's not to lay blame on themselves. He fell on her. That's how 'twas. She was a-crawlin' over the sill to meet him—her daddy. An' he fell on her——"
"Put away those thoughts, Grace! Put away that memory! Grace—look at me! You must—not——"
"I'm lookin' at ye. That's what makes me remember. It ain't much to you, maybe, to be friends with me. But it's a heap to me, to be friends with you. Oh—" she threw her arms above her head, and her bitter cry rang out. "Oh, curse the stills! Curse 'em, curse 'em! First 'twas my baby, an' now—if anyone harms you, even so be 'twas Joe, I'll kill him!"
It was a devotion undreamed of. Their friendship had progressed insensibly. There had been long talks, when Grace's apparent simplicity had made it easy for Rosamund to open her heart, as far as in her lay; and she had been glad enough to feed the other's hunger for knowledge with tales of the things she had seen in the world, as Grace called all that lay beyond the barrier of the mountains. Yet it had been, as Grace herself had rightly said, not a very large part of life to Rosamund; all the stranger was the revelation of what their friendship meant to Grace.
It was long before she could bind Grace to secrecy; for Grace believed that safety lay in making known the dastardly attack of the afternoon. Rosamund denied that actual danger could exist, that the attacks—if such there might be—could possibly go farther; and she very well knew that if to-day's were made known it would put an end to all her plans for the winter, now progressed so far.
Yet all that night she lay awake. It was a dreadful thing to know herself suspected, distrusted, perhaps hated; why, she asked herself, could the mountaineers not read her innocence in the very fact of her remaining openly among them? They did not suspect Ogilvie; why, then, should they look upon her innocent self as a spy?
But morning found her with all terrors gone. Pride of race and knowledge of good intentions had come to sustain her.
In gold, in gems, it is friction which produces brilliancy; in the finer grades of humanity it is opposition, anxiety, suffering, even misfortune, which bring out inherent noble qualities that might else remain undiscovered. The fine courage of high race Rosamund had always possessed, but it lay hidden within her until the sting of an unseen enemy brought it to light. Fatigue and doubts and half-developed fears fell from her in the night; with the coming of the day she found herself strong in courage, in resourcefulness.
Ogilvie met her, later in the morning, coming from the post office at the Summit, and White Rosy stopped of her own accord until Rosamund had seated herself in the buggy.
"You look less tired," he said.
She laughed. "I'm not tired at all! I feel as if I could move mountains, even these mountains; I believe I could even move the people on them!"
He looked at her more keenly, and wondered what had caused her elation. His anxiety for her—and something else—was too great to permit of a smile in answer to hers.
"It is never too late to mend your ways!" he suggested. "I hope it's a change of mind that's making you so pleased with yourself!"
She laughed again, merrily. "It may be a change of mind," she said, "but it isn't a change of intention."
She waited for his question, but he only looked grimly at White Rosy's joggling ears.
"Don't you want to know what I mean?" she asked.
"Yes," he said shortly.
Rosamund glanced at him. "Dear me!" she remarked, and was provokingly silent until, at last, he turned towards her.
"Please!" he begged.
"Let's talk of something else," she said, and turned her face away from him to hide her dimples. "I don't in the least want to bore you with my affairs. You've been so kind!"
At that he shook his head, tumbled the old cap into the back of the buggy, and ran his fingers through his hair. He heaved a deep breath, and said, in the helpless tone of the bewildered male, "Oh, Lord!"
Then she turned towards him and laughed aloud. "I won't tease any more," she cried. "You and Father Cary almost frightened me, for a day or two, with your warnings and forebodings. Last night I was ready to give up the brown house and telegraph Mrs. Reeves not to come. This morning I have telegraphed her to hurry!"
His face became more stern. "I don't like it. I don't approve of it. You may take my word for it, there will be trouble if you go to live in that place, an unprotected household of women."
"Oh, but we shall not be an unprotected household of women! We are going to have good old Uncle Matt, my old nurse's husband! Surely I told you? Although," she thought to herself, "if old Matt saw a man with a gun I believe he'd crawl under the bed!"
The doctor looked a little relieved. "Well, that is the best thing you've planned yet," he said. "I had intended coming twice a day and taking care of your furnace myself; but Matt—did you say the man's name was Matt?—will be on the spot."
"Mercy!" she exclaimed. "I never once thought of the furnace!"
"I imagined as much," he said, dryly.
"Oh, well," she retorted, as he stopped before the brown cottage, "you would never have remembered to come! White Rosy would have had just one more thing on her mind!"
The result of Rosamund's increased determination was that, by the end of the week, a curiously assorted household was taxing the capacity of the cottage almost to the utmost. Grace Tobet, however, was not there. Rosamund had many long talks with her about other things; the poor soul had been miserably uneasy since the episode of the stone-throwing, and besought Rosamund to release her from her bond of silence. But that their friendship might bring trouble upon herself she denied, and when Rosamund tried to persuade her to take shelter in the brown house she would do no more than shake her head or raise the girl's hand to her own cheek in caress, or look off to the hills with unseeing eyes tear-brimmed, as on the first day she had spoken of her baby; and Rosamund could not urge her farther after that.
"It's often that a way," Mother Cary said, when Rosamund told her about it. "It binds 'em to a place faster than ropes could. You can break through most anything you can see, honey-bud; it's the things you can't see that you can't get away from. And they holds you all the tighter when they're the things you useter have and haven't any more—'specially little child'en."
Eleanor, too, had a word to say on Grace's side. "Can't you see, sweet, that if she leaves her Joe, she will be admitting his unworthiness?"
"But since he plainly is unworthy——?"
"What he is has very little to do with it. It is what she must believe him to be, as long as she can."
"How can she believe him to be anything that is good? He killed their baby—and you know very well that she has had to go through the woods all alone at night to warn him when the Government men are out."
Eleanor shook her head. "We don't know that, Rose. And as long as Grace stays with him and says nothing, we can't know it. She is keeping that fact from being knowledge—if it is fact. Don't you see that she just has to hold on to that vague 'if'?"
"But she cannot possibly love the man, Eleanor!"
Eleanor looked at her curiously, and for some hidden reason which she could not define Rosamund's heart, under that long look, began to beat faster.
"Ah, Rosamund, which of us can understand love?" Eleanor asked. After a pause she added, "I have wondered sometimes whether they really and truly love—the people who question 'why'!"
Rosamund was beginning to be afraid of the turn the conversation was taking. "Oh, Eleanor!" she exclaimed, somewhat impatiently, "your subtleties are beyond me!"
While they talked, Tim had been tramping back and forth on the front veranda of the house, himself the horse of a little iron wagon that was one of his new toys. He was seldom willing that Eleanor should waste time in uninteresting conversation with grown-ups. He had taken her for his own; and Rosamund, Yetta, Mother Cary—everyone who had ministered to him before—were all but forgotten. Eleanor must now do everything for him; nothing less than complete possession could satisfy his hungry little heart. And Eleanor's hunger for Tim went beyond his for her; as she talked, her eyes followed him, her look brooding upon him as if he were new-born and her own.
At Rosamund's last exclamation she laughed, and bending towards Timmy on one of his turnings, gathered him into her arms, in spite of his indignantly protesting squirms and thrusts.
"My subtleties, indeed!" she said, while burrowing for kisses under the curls on his neck. "I'm the most elemental creature alive! I'm nothing more than a mother hen!"
"Matt chopped ve chicken's head off wif a ax," said Tim, "an' it hopped an' hopped an' hopped. An' Sue took all its fevvers off. But chickens don't catch cold. An' anyway its head was gone."
"Mercy!" said Rosamund. "Matt ought not to have let the child see that! And I do wish he wouldn't be so—so explicit!"
They laughed, but Eleanor could not ignore the opportunity for a lesson in good manners. She had tried in vain to impress it upon Tim before; now she repeated, "You must call herAuntSue, Timmy! I call her that, and Miss Rose does. You want to be polite, too, don't you?"
But Tim knew what he wanted; he had thought it out for himself. "She ain't," he said, frowning. "An' I don't want her. I got a muvver."
"Oh! The darling!" cried Eleanor, and let him swagger back to his march with the wagon.
So the boy was provided for, and Eleanor daily gained in health. Ogilvie was delighted.
"Just let it go on for a few months," said he, "and she'll forget she has any eyes. Pity she'll have to go back to work, though," he added.
He had been away for a few days, on some consultation, and so could notice the change in her all the more for his absence. They were driving through the golden woods; the first heavy frost had fallen the night before.
Her breath fluttered a little as she answered. "She will not have to work any more—not as she used to—if she decides really to adopt Timmy," she said, palpitating in wonder as to how he would take the disclosure of her gift and what it implied.
He turned quickly to look at her, all interest. "So that's what Flood meant!" he said.
She returned his look rather blankly. "Mr. Flood? What on earth do you mean?"
"I stayed with him in New York, you know. He told me the kiddie's future was provided for, but he was too modest to tell me how. That's one of the things I like about him—his modesty. He's a fine fellow, Flood is."
It was something more than disconcerting to have her generosity attributed to someone else; that he should give the credit of it to Flood, of all people, was plainly provoking.
"Did he give you to understand that he had done the providing?" she asked.
"Why, no! I've just told you he was too modest!" Then, perhaps at something in her look of disdain, he understood. "Oh, I see! I'm sure I beg your pardon! It is you who are doing it?"
She did not reply nor look at him, but flushed deeply.
But he did not seem to think it mattered either way. "Well, it'll be the best thing in the world for them both," he said.
So there was to be no word of praise for herself! She forgot to wonder at his unquestioning acceptance of the fact that she should have enough to spare for such a gift; it did not occur to her until afterward that he must have known of her fortune all along.
In her disappointment and dismay she spoke with a little tremor of anger which did not escape him.
"I suppose you think it is no more than I ought to do!" she said.
He ran his fingers through his hair. "Well! Is it?" he questioned.
She did not reply to that, and he asked, "You will not miss what you give, will you?" By his tone he might have been asking, "Well, what of it? What's money good for, anyway?"
At that she turned to him, head lifted, eyes aflame. "I suppose you are one of those people who think that we ought to divide everything equally—number the people and give them equal shares—so many pennies apiece!"
He laughed good-humoredly. "O Lord, no! If the wealth of the nations were equally divided on a Monday, it would be back in the pockets it was taken from by the first Saturday night! The smart ones would get it all back again."
"I am not one of the—'smart'—ones. But I suppose it wouldn't matter if I went hungry——"
Whatever she had hoped for from that, his reply was certainly unexpected. He looked at her for a moment, then put his head back and roared—laughed until the woods rang, until White Rosy turned her head to look at him, until Rosamund, her anger melting, laughed with him.
"Oh, I say!" he cried at last. "I'm awfully sorry! Miss Randall—you'll forgive me for being so utterly stupid, won't you?"
"I did want you to praise me," she admitted, dimpling.
Instantly he became serious. "To praise you would be like praising the sunlight, or the blessed rain, or any other of the crowning works of God Almighty," he said.
"We were talking of Timmy," she reminded him, not quite truthfully, but grasping at anything that might turn him from that strain, "and Mr. Flood!"
The ruse succeeded. "Flood! Yes. He's a big man."
"I don't think I quite realized that you were such friends!"
"I like him," said Ogilvie. "I like him mighty well. He's a chap who's not afraid to be fine. I tell you, it was a surprise to me to find him that sort—Benson Flood. You know, the name seems to suggest bonanzas, show and glitter, crudeness, perhaps a little—well—not what he is, anyway."
"But, surely, you have only seen him—twice, three times, isn't it? How can you possibly know all that about him?"
He smiled. "Oh, men don't always have tolearneach other, as they would lessons, you know. I know what Flood is as well as if I had known him for years—and I like him as well, too!"
She looked at his enthusiastic face a little wonderingly. "Women are not like that," she said. "We—I don't think we—believe in our friends, as men do!"
"Oh, come now! Why don't you?"
"Because we don't. And because we don't deserve it. Why, you talk about Mr. Flood, who is certainly a new friend, to say the least, as if you would make any sacrifice for him! Women wouldn't do that for each other."
He could not guess that her touch of bitterness was due to her new humility—the humility she was so rapidly learning through her experiences here in the mountains; certainly he was far from seeing that he had himself done much to teach it to her, even during the past hour, when he had seemed to look upon her wealth as of small significance; now he was putting far more emphasis upon the fineness of character of Flood, the man she had so lightly esteemed.
"I fancy Mrs. Reeves would have something to say to that," said Ogilvie.
"Oh, Eleanor! Eleanor is my exception, of course! We all have our exceptions. But aside from Eleanor, there is no one else for whom I would make a sacrifice; yet you would do so for Mr. Flood, wouldn't you?"
Now he was rumpling his hair until it stood on end. "Why, yes, I suppose so! Yes, of course," he said, as if he were wondering where the talk was leading. Then he put it aside, and turned towards her.
"How little you know yourself!" he said.
Before long there were ominous signs in the Tobet cottage. Mother Cary would shake her head whenever Grace's name was mentioned.
"It's bad now, land knows!" she said. "But it'll be worse, come spring. It ain't for me to deny that them the Lord sends He looks out for; but a body can't help wonderin' sometimes, at His choice o' the places He sends 'em to. Yet it's a livin' wonder how things do work out, honey."
The doctor openly berated Joe, and the two would have come to blows but for Grace's pleadings; afterwards he told Rosamund that Mother Cary had roundly scolded him for his interference, which of course ended the little influence he had over the man. Joe, indeed, swore that he would 'hurt' him if he found him again in his house, and it was only at the brown cottage or the Carys' that he could see poor Grace and give her what help he could. Tobet had also, of course, forbidden his wife to hold communication with 'the stranger woman'; but Grace knew his ways and times well enough to go occasionally to both her friends' houses. She herself could not have told from which she derived more comfort.
For a while Rosamund was unaware of any further evidences of the mountaineers' distrust; then, in the third week, came the most disquieting thing that had yet happened.
Their evenings at the cottage were usually placid enough. Rosamund had engaged the services of the young teacher of the district school to give lessons to Yetta, who, with the mental avidity of her race, was fairly absorbing knowledge, and rapidly acquiring the speech and manner of the world. She worshiped Rosamund, and tried to copy her in everything; she was urged onward, too, by her awakened ambition to sing, it being understood that her general education must be well on the way before the promised singing lessons should begin. The girl would have spent hours at her books, but Ogilvie had forbidden her reading at night; and Rosamund would read aloud to her for an hour or two after the lamps were lighted.
To-night Yetta had begged, as usual, for a later bed hour, and for once had been indulged. The wind had blown from the east all day, bleak and cold. Rosamund had been more and more restless with each passing hour, and now had a longing for company which made her lenient with Yetta. But at last the girl had reluctantly gone upstairs; and after a while Rosamund went up, too, in search of Eleanor.
She had not been the only one in the house to be made restless by the wind; Tim had been cross all day, and even Eleanor was glad at last to see him safely tucked into bed. But, having done so, she had scarcely taken her place on the opposite side of the table from Rosamund and Yetta, than a little white-clad figure appeared in the doorway.
"O Timmy!" Eleanor had cried, protesting.
"Well, I forgot to God-bless Pa Cary," said Tim, as if that justified his reappearance.
"Tim! Go right back to bed!" said Eleanor, with a conscientious attempt at sternness. Tim hesitated, wavered on the threshold, and she gained in courage. "Go back at once!" she said.
His under lip began to tremble. "I can't God-bless wivout somebody to say it to!" he said, and Eleanor got up, took him by the hand, and led him up to bed and his devotions.
Since then she had not come down again, and when Rosamund went in search of her it was to find her on her knees beside Tim's bed, asleep, her pale gold hair mingling with the yellow of his, her arms across his little body, one of his hands on her cheek.
Rosamund crept downstairs again, the loneliness of a moment ago pressing now upon her heart like a pain. The sitting-room was warm and cosy, with its open fire and the lamp with a yellow shade; but it was empty, for all that. She crossed the room to the window that faced the valley and rolled up the shade. Through the wind-swept air Mother Cary's light twinkled brightly on the opposite mountain; that was a home, too. It added to her sense of loneliness. She went back to her place by the table, her thoughts wandering—from the happy two in the room overhead, to her plans for Yetta; from Ogilvie, to Flood; from the present——
But, gradually, insensibly, into her mental atmosphere, there crept a shadowy, indefinable influence, something malevolent and strangely disquieting. She had never known fear; but as she sat there she shuddered, became cold with an unearthly chill, as if some premonition of horror were laying its clammy hand upon her. She said afterward that she felt herself in a cloud of dread and apprehension such as one might feel before the apparition of something ghostly or uncanny. It was intolerable. She must shake off such mental cowering, and forced herself to turn towards the window through which Mother Cary's light could be seen, thinking the friendly beacon would reassure her.
Then, although her heart seemed for an instant to stop beating, she sprang up; but her knees refused their burden, and she sank again into her chair, leaning forward with straining eyes, clutching its arms; for the light on the mountain was blotted out by a hideous thing, a white face set in shaggy hair, a sneering face, a face where drink and hate and fear had set their marks. As she sprang up and sank down again the wicked glare of hate turned into a more frightful leer; then the creature raised a horrid fist, shook it towards her—and vanished into the night.
It was Eleanor who came running downstairs at the cry she tried to choke back.
The two kept watch through the night, and morning found Rosamund shaken and feverish, but firmly determined to lay aside her dread, and at all hazards to keep her friends in the city in ignorance of it.
She shuddered at the thought of what the newspapers would make of it, and of Cecilia's raging, and Pendleton's taunting comments. She and Eleanor, in the reassuring daylight, tried to laugh away each other's fears; and both agreed that they would not be frightened away from the brown house; they agreed, too, that Ogilvie must not know.
But to keep the doctor in ignorance of what had happened was not so easy as Rosamund had hoped. He had many opportunities of hearing rumors that did not reach her; if he had not constantly persisted in his warnings it was not because he no longer feared for her, but because it seemed best to watch, rather than to warn. He went to the cottage every day on one pretext or another; if it was not fear alone which took him there, he admitted to himself no other reason.
It was not altogether because he was too busy with his mountaineer patients, as Mother Cary had told Rosamund, that he had remained among them; now and again he had consulted his friends, and his vigorous enjoyment of the days as they passed also told unmistakably of his recovery; but another year of mountain practice would doubly insure his safety in going back to his investigations in the confinement of the laboratory. Meanwhile he had thrown himself into the work here with ardor, as he must always do with work or play; but now just at the time when he was beginning to think of his return to the city there came into his thoughts an influence as disturbing as it was novel.
Early in the summer one of his classmates, the Doctor Blake who was Mother Cary's old friend, had come from the city for a visit of a day or two, and to him Rosamund's name was unmistakably well known. He had seen her, too, in town. There could be no mistake; she was the only daughter of old Randall, the "king" of Georgia pine. It seemed to Blake a wild freak which kept such a girl here in the mountains, away from her kind, a freak to be distrusted. He watched Ogilvie rather keenly when they met Rosamund at Mother Cary's that afternoon, but it was evident that Ogilvie was master of whatever emotions he might have towards her. As a matter of fact, her money counted no more in his estimate of her than a scar on her cheek, or a strand of gray hair, or an ignorance of German would have counted. He knew himself for a man, and more; he knew, as they who possess the embryo of greatness never fail to know, that he had that to offer which all her money could not buy; the belief that she, too, knew as much was fast becoming the essence of life for him.
The thought of her filled his days and half his nights. Her swinging step along the frozen roads, the tired child nestling in her arms, the cadence of her voice as she greeted him, the look of shy withdrawal that he sometimes surprised in her eyes—all would set him inwardly trembling, longing, worshiping. Yet love was new to him, and he feared; inexperience had left him with nothing for comparison. He could not know how far to venture. Masculine instinct warned him to display to her the brightest plumage of his mind and heart, and their walks and drives together were full of talk and intimate silences; but of that which was uppermost in his desire he feared to speak.
Yet his fears no less than his love made him keen to notice every shade of expression on her face, and on the morning after her fright at the hideous vision at the window he saw at once that something was amiss. He had been over the mountain earlier in the day to set a man's broken arm, and several things had made him more than usually suspicious that the underworld of the woods was stirring uneasily. A storm of some sort was certainly in the air; the people showed themselves distrustful even of him, and the very children shrank into reserve at his approach.
Rosamund had walked across the valley to Mother Cary's, to confide to her the strange disturbing happening of the night; then she had gone home again, hoping for that day to escape Ogilvie's keen eyes. The tale had been most disquieting to the old woman, and when Rosamund had gone, she sent Pap to the main road to hail the doctor as he passed. She had been bound to secrecy, but she could at least, without breach of trust, send him a message.
"You tell Doctor Ogilvie that I say when wolves are out, lambs 're in danger. Jest that; don't say another word. Ef he's all I take him for he'll understand."
Pap repeated the message word for word and the two men looked into each other's eyes for a moment, in a look that told far more than the message; then Ogilvie whipped up White Rosy with unprecedented emphasis, and the old mare gallantly responded, as if she knew that an emergency prompted the unaccustomed touch. Ogilvie was sure that one glance at Rosamund's face would tell him whether she were the lamb Mother Cary had in mind; and the girl's pale cheeks, that flushed so treacherously when he entered the brown cottage, disclosed the secret she would have kept. But Mother Cary must not be betrayed, and he greeted her as if he suspected nothing.
"I saw Aunt Sue at the clothesline," he said, "so I used the doctor's privilege and just walked in! Tell me if I'm in the way."
She turned a large chair towards the blaze in the fireplace and moved her own a little back, as if to credit her bright color to the heat of the flames.
"Doctors are always welcome," she said.
But that did not satisfy him, and with characteristic directness he pursued the question. "Am I not welcome as a friend, too?"
She bent forward to reach the tongs, and lifted a glowing ember. "You're welcome in every rôle! But you are very formal to-day, aren't you, in spite of your just walking in? Why?"
She was always mistress of herself when she could tease. Ogilvie, however, would not respond to her levity.
"Because doctors may prescribe, and friends may advise; as it happens, I want to do both!"
She sat up very straight and looked at him mockingly. "Dear me!" she said, in the dry tone which usually provoked all his Scotch combativeness.
But to-day that, also, he ignored.
"Where are Mrs. Reeves and the children?" he asked.
"Eleanor has taken Tim on a hunt for nuts, and Yetta is at her lessons."
He frowned. "Which way have they gone?"
"I have not the least idea."
"Have you seen Grace lately?"
"I have not," she replied. "Pray don't mind asking about anything you want to know!"
He would not notice her flippancy even to frown. "Because," he said, "she is not at her own house, nor the Allens', and she has not been to the Carys' since yesterday morning; if she has not been here either, there is only one thing possible—or at all likely——"
At last Rosamund became serious; if Grace had gone into the woods it could, indeed, mean but one thing. "Oh, dear!" she cried. "Does that mean—do you think?—that Joe is out again?"
The doctor nodded. "And has been for several days. The trouble is coming to a head somewhere. I wish I knew where. The very air is full of it, and these people are so mysterious that even I cannot get anything definite. Pa Cary says they all believe there are spies about."
At the word, Rosamund's hand went to her throat, and her lips paled. "Oh, then——" she began, and stopped.
Ogilvie leaned forward and laid his hand on the arm of her chair.
"Then?" he repeated, looking closely at her.
His intentness forced the tale from her. He listened without interrupting, and when she had finished, sat for a while in deep meditation.
At last he drew a long breath, rose, took a turn or two about the little room, and came and stood before her, frowning.
"You shall not stay here," he said.
Of all words he could have chosen none more unfortunate. A tone of fear, a phrase of hidden tenderness, even an appeal to her own sense of the futility of braving the hovering danger—almost anything but the words and tone he used would have induced her to submit to his wishes; but this imperative command of words and voice touched off some quick, foolish spark within her.
"Ah, but that is precisely what I am going to do," she calmly declared. "They will find out sooner or later that I am not a spy. I shall remain here until they do."
Unconsciously, as once before, her name escaped him. "Rosamund," he cried, "I cannot stand it! I cannot bear to think of your being in danger!"
If she heard, she gave no sign of it. "I do not believe there is the slightest danger," she said, "but what if there is? I have taken up my life here; there are always difficulties to be overcome whenever one wants really to do anything. Why should I run away from my share of them?"
He had turned toward the fire, his arm resting upon the mantel-shelf, and his forehead upon his clenched hand.
"I wish I could make you understand how it is with me," she went on. "I have chosen, deliberately chosen, to take this way of living. I have come here to stay, for a time anyway. You would tell me, I know, that I could have the same little family somewhere else. I know I could; but I am not staying only on their account, any more than I am for a mere whim of my own. The place is more my home than any I have ever known since I was a little girl. I love it, and I see so many things to be done, things I can do; and I want to do them. I don't always know how, but I am learning. These mountain people are distrustful of everyone; but all wild creatures can be tamed, if one has patience. When they have learned to trust me I can help them. I am not going to be driven away. Besides, when all else is said, I don't see the need of it!"
"You had warning last night. Whoever that ruffian was, his coming here meant no good to you."
For a while she was silent, and when she spoke he looked at her, and saw that there were tears in her eyes.
"Oh, I cannot argue it out," she cried. "Of course, you can array fact upon fact to prove me wrong and foolish. Oh—Doctor Ogilvie, be fair! Credit me with a purpose! I have never before had a chance to go on in a simple, clearly defined line of action. It would not seem very much to most people, I suppose—merely to stay here, to live in this little cottage with Eleanor and the children. But it's the only real life I've ever known, as far as I can remember. I was dropped into this place by accident, and I found something to do. What is more, I found myself among real people. It is not much—but to live my own life—that is what I want!" In her emotion she stood before him, straight and purposeful. "Won't you give me credit for the strength of it, and not believe me merely willful?"
He was deeply moved; she laid her own in the hand he held out to her. "I will credit you with everything that is brave and good," he said, with utmost seriousness. "If you are really determined to remain here, I will not interfere. If this is what you choose, I will try to believe it is the best thing for you—the only thing."
Her earnestness had fanned in his heart an altar-flame of worship and new faith; its glow shone in his eyes, and her face paled under his look. In the tenseness of the moment there could be no speech, but it seemed as if their souls sped toward each other on a bridge of understanding. They were hushed before the vision of great elemental truth; and although later they came to believe that they had been deluded, that vision of truth remained as having passed between them, a revelation and a message.
Afterward, in the hours when doubt and pain and loneliness were her companions, she often wondered what the outcome might have been; but she could only wonder, for at the highest moment of their silent communion there sounded a well-remembered view-halloo, and a quick turn of the head showed the flash of a big red car that was stopping before the house.
With a low cry she drew away the hand that had been held in his, turned from him, and for an instant hid her face in her two palms, needing the moment to recall her soul from the heights. When she turned at the sound of steps upon the veranda Ogilvie was gone; she stooped to pick up his worn brown cap, left unheeded upon the hearth, put it quickly into a drawer, and turned the key in the lock.
The revulsion of feeling was so sharp as to demand all the effort she was capable of making to move at all. Her self-control had never before been so severely tested; the strain was so great that she forgot to smile, until Pendleton, drawing off his gloves and toasting his back at the fire, which he first took pains to rearrange with as serene assurance as if it had been his own house, said:
"Dear me, Rosamund! Why this exuberant gayety of welcome?"
It was easy enough to laugh, and she felt secretly grateful for his nonsense. She had almost forgotten the time when she had found such banter on her own part a veritable shield and buckler.
"I'm stunned with joy, Marshall," she laughed. Then, turning to Flood, "Have my woods brought you?"
He flushed with joy that she should have remembered their talk on the Pocantico ride. "Your woods and what's in them," he told her. "I've brought down a couple of young dogs, and we thought we'd try for some shooting before the snow. That's due any day now, isn't it?"
"Yes, the season has been unusually late, they say. But, Mr. Flood, you must not try to do any shooting around here!"
"Why not?" Pendleton put in, raising his eyebrows; he succeeded in trying to look teasing only so far as to appear malicious. "Tame birds, Rose?"
She ignored his impudence. "You'd get me into greater disfavor than ever," she said, speaking to Flood. "You know there are said to be illicit stills in these mountains; there have been some lawless things done within a year or two, and the Government is watching the people here, or so they believe. They are distrustful of everybody—my poor innocent self included."
"I hope there's nothing unpleasant?" Flood asked, looking disturbed.
"No! Oh, dear, no! But there might be, if you went about in the woods with your guns, and were known to be my friends."
"Your fears are quite groundless, my dear," said Pendleton. "We were not going to stop here, anyway, but Flood hesitates to disillusion you. There's no hotel in your neighborhood, you know."
"I'm so glad!" she cried, and then joined the two men in their laugh. "Oh, Marshall, you're always making me absurd! You know perfectly well what I mean! I had horrible visions of your being murdered in the woods; naturally, I'm not glad there's no place for you to stay! I wish I could put you up here, but——"
"Certainly!" said Flood, to her expressive pause. "We understand how impossible it would be. Fact is, we thought we'd run down to Oakleigh for a few days, and we found we wanted to come a bit out of the path and call on you! Hope you don't mind?"
To her surprise she realized that she was really very glad to see them. She had within the hour been declaring that she had put away the old life, yet here were these two dropped from the skies of chance, to remind her of it; and she was undeniably glad to see them!
It ended in their staying to the midday dinner, when Aunt Sue surpassed the standard of her own fried chicken and beaten biscuits, and Matt could be heard turning the ice-cream freezer all during the first part of the meal, and Tim had to be suppressed by Eleanor because he would persist in trying to describe how the chickens they were eating had hopped and hopped and hopped when Matt had chopped their heads off.
It was the first time Flood had met Eleanor, and it was immediately evident that she impressed him very much. His look was upon her more than upon Rosamund; he watched her every move with a light of pleasure in his eyes, and his manner toward her was exquisite—holding something of the deference of a young man toward a very charming, very old lady, something of the tenderness of a physician toward a courageous patient, something of a courtier's manner toward a queen, a little of the look of the lover of beauty at something unexpectedly lovely. And since Eleanor was neither old nor ill nor yet a queen, it must have been her loveliness, fragile and gentle and rare, that had attracted him, since attracted he so plainly was.
He would look from Eleanor to Rosamund from time to time as if trying to convey, silently, to the woman whom he held above all others how lovely he found her friend; and Rosamund, understanding and liking him for it, drew Eleanor out of the little tiredness of manner that was apt to fall upon her before strangers, and Flood brought the color to Eleanor's cheeks when he noticed how Timmy had blossomed under her care. Indeed, the little boy, with the quick adaptability of babyhood, might have been petted and adored all his life, so complacently did he accept his new mother's care and ignore the comments of Flood; for the moment he was absorbed in the celery family which he had spread out before him on the tablecloth.
"It's me an' my muvver," he said to himself, as he arrayed a short stalk and some longer ones before him, "an' it's Miss Rose, an' it's Yetta, an' it's Matt. An' vey ain't any Sue!" Tim could not be prevailed upon to accept Aunt Susan, apparently feeling that in order to repudiate the relationship which he thought her title of courtesy implied he must repudiate her entirely.
After dinner Rosamund managed so that a rather reluctant Flood and Eleanor should be led off by Tim to inspect the chickens. Pendleton was by no means disdaining to pay homage to Yetta's black eyes, and for a while Rosamund watched the two with amusement.
It was the first opportunity Rosamund had found for measuring the girl's improvement. It was amusing to see how well Yetta had learned to imitate Eleanor's manners and her own, how seldom she lapsed into the speech of the streets, yet how much of her native quickness and assurance she had retained. She was never at a loss for an answer to Pendleton's banter; and Pendleton, soaring to farther and farther heights of absurdity, was enjoying himself immensely, when Rosamund decided that Yetta had had enough, and sent the girl off to her lessons.
"Now what did you break it up for, Rose?" Pendleton protested, adding, "It's wonderful how jealous all you women are of me!"
She laughed. "Marshall! Your absurdity is only exceeded by your modesty!"
"Oh, I know my worth," said he, folding his hands and looking down, with his head on one side. Apparently he never tired of playing the clown.
"Tell me about Cecilia," said Rosamund.
"Ah, dear Cecilia! She's looking very well this autumn, very well indeed. And young! And slim! I admire dear Cecilia's slimness exceedingly. It's a monument to perseverance and self-denial."
Rosamund understood, and smiled with him. "Her letters have sounded very happy, so I've taken it for granted that things have gone well with her," she said.
"Well, you're responsible for that, aren't you? 'Pon my word, if Cecilia had money enough—or I had—to make her contented——" He sighed. "But Cecilia's up to something. She doesn't seem to—er—to care as much for my company as she did. Why, Rose, would you believe it, she even sent down word to me the other day that she had a headache!"
"Perhaps she had," Rosamund suggested.
"Oh, no. No. If she had, she would have let me see her. I'm good for headaches. No, it wasn't that. Besides, it was the very day after Flood told her he was coming here, and asked if she had any messages for you. No. Cecilia's up to something."
He wilted sideways in his chair, and tried to look pensive and pathetic. Rosamund watched him, amused as always, and not in the least understanding what he was trying to imply.
Suddenly he leaned toward her. "And you're up to something, too, Rosy!" he said, as if throwing the words at her. "What's your game in staying down here, anyway?"
She flushed angrily. "Marshall! You go too far, you know!"
"Oh, come along, don't get mad!" he said. "What's your little game? Are you staying up here to draw old Flood on, or is it something else? I won't tell!"
She felt herself enveloped in a hot wave of anger and disgust, as if the fetid breath of some foul creature had blown toward her. She sprang from her chair and went swiftly toward the long window, and throwing it open stepped down to the piazza.
Pendleton followed as calmly as if nothing had been said to arouse her; but she was spared an answer, even a look, for Eleanor and Flood were coming back to the house, Flood declaring that it was time for their adieux.
Rosamund was glad; she had been unexpectedly glad to see them, but now her pleasure was gone. She felt sick at heart, and wanted to be alone. Yet her pride sustained her until they were gone; she stood on the veranda to wave farewell to them as if nothing had happened, one arm about Yetta's shoulders, framed against the background of the little brown house that Flood thought so inadequate a shelter for a creature so beloved and so rare.
Flood felt that he had been discretion itself. He had learned his lesson, and was now too anxious for ultimate success to risk alarming her; but every move she made, every look, every tone had been as meat and drink to his longing.
On their way back past the Summit his mind and heart were full of her, from her first silent greeting to the last glimpse of her with her arm across the child's shoulders. How like her unerring taste, he thought, to have chosen as friend so exquisite a creature as that Mrs. Reeves; and how right Mrs. Reeves had been in all her praise of Rosamund! It had seemed to him to-day that her face had been more than ever full of dancing play of color; certainly her cheeks had flamed when she had come out of that long window to meet him.
But Pendleton broke in on his dreams. "Our Rosy was looking exceedingly blooming," said he. "Wonder what's up?"
He managed to throw something of insinuation into his tone.
"Oh, shut up, you ass!" said Flood.
Whereupon Mr. Pendleton raised his eyebrows, smiled, and proceeded to whistle the "Merry Widow Waltz," which he knew Flood detested, for one immortal hour.
Later in the evening, when Tim and Yetta had been long in bed, Rosamund and Eleanor were in the sitting-room before the fire, the table with its yellow-shaded lamp drawn up between them. Since the night of Rosamund's fright the shades were kept drawn at night; now the room, in its seclusion, was warm and cosy with the sense of home. Eleanor smiled over a garment of Timmy's that she was mending; she stopped, from time to time, to look into the fire, laying the work in her lap as if it were a task over which she loved to linger.
Rosamund sat back in her big chair, her eyes partly closed, deep in thought. The day had been full of crowding emotions. She mentally recalled first one and then another, trying to marshal them into some sequence of cause and event.
On the last moments between herself and John Ogilvie she dwelt least; even in memory they were too palpitating. It is only after surrender, or after loss, that a woman loves to dwell upon such moments; before, they hold too much of fear, not to call forth the feminine withdrawal of the unwon. His looks she dared recall; his pale intensity, the flame in his eyes, the fear and anger there as she described the wicked face at the window, his look before he left her, when Pendleton's step was already on the veranda.
That brought her thoughts to Pendleton, to his insinuations and the slight leer in his look. She shuddered all the more because she knew that, a few months before, she would have parried his impertinence with a laugh, instead of with the scorn and anger she had not been able to hide to-day. She was at least that far from the old life, the old state of mind! She knew now how intolerable she would find the people who had seemed only commonplace before! Looking back, secure in her new life in this purer air, she could say to herself how much she hated their suspicions of everyone, their petty gossip, their searching for hidden, unworthy motives in every least action, their expecting the base to emerge from every innocence, their smiling, flattering faces.
She was glad, she told herself, so glad to be away from all that—all the more glad because she could remember the time when it had not especially displeased her. Yet in fairness she reminded herself that Flood was different. He had been very nice, indeed, to-day—and he had liked Eleanor. It spoke well for him that Eleanor, too, liked him! She looked across at Eleanor's tenderly brooding face, and smiled; how suitable it would be, she thought, if Flood and Eleanor—that would relieve herself of Flood's intentions. It was the first time she had been willing to admit that she knew what they were—and intentions on Flood's part would be quite delightful if Eleanor were their object——
So her thoughts passed, from one thing to another, until, suddenly, as if a shot had broken her dream, her heart stood still with fear, then seemed to leap into her throat.
She and Eleanor were on their feet in an instant, hands grasping hands, startled eyes searching each other's and then turning toward the door. This time it was no stealthy presence which had crept upon the house to peer in at the window. Even while they held each other, there in their safety before the fire, something stumbled across the piazza, fell against the door, cried out, seemed to fall farther, as if at the limit of strength—and was still.
Even the negroes in the kitchen heard the noise, and came running in with scared faces.
Rosamund moved quickly and quietly to the door, silently slid back the bolt, and flung it open.
There was no lurking enemy to surprise. Instead, a huddled form lay, as if crushed, before the doorsill. Between them they managed to lift it and bear it upstairs. All the way up Eleanor, though trembling and very white, carried her full share of the burden, and kept saying over and over to Rosamund:
"It's all right, sweet! Don't be frightened! It's all right, sweet! Don't be frightened!"
And Rosamund was saying over and over, on sobbing breath, "O Grace! Poor Grace! O Grace!"
They laid her on a bed and undressed her. The poor cut feet were soiled with blood and seemed frozen; the forehead beneath the pale strands of hair—those pathetic strands of the woman in whom pride and vanity are dead—was cut and bruised; on her body they found larger bruises. They bathed her, and wrapped her in clean linen, and made her as comfortable as they could. Aunt Sue and Eleanor exchanged looks, and shook their heads. They sent Matt after the doctor. Then Timmy called out, and Eleanor went to him. Aunt Sue said something about more hot water, and descended to the kitchen.
Rosamund knelt beside the bed, and presently Grace fluttered back to a dim consciousness.
"Miss Rose! Miss Rose!" were her first words, uttered in a tone of fright.
"Yes, dear! I am here," said Rosamund, laying one of her cool hands on Grace's forehead.
Grace closed her eyes as if satisfied. "I had to come," she whispered. "It wasn't only for me."
The doctor promptly, in his most professional manner, turned Rosamund out of the room as soon as he got there. He preferred the old colored woman even to Eleanor as assistant; and he showed no sign of remembering that night in the Allen house when Rosamund had fought beside him, through the heavy hours, for a woman's life. When he closed the door of Grace's room upon her, she was keenly hurt; she could not know that while he worked over poor Grace he was recalling every moment of that earlier scene, viewing it now through the glamor of his later knowledge of her.
Aunt Sue was installed as supreme power in the sick-room. Grace's life hung by a thread for days, and before the doctor could be sure that all would be well the disquieting news of Joe Tobet's arrest came to disturb them still further.
Snow lay deep over everything before Grace came down among them, a pale wraith of a woman, but with a deepened sweetness of expectation in her face. They feared to tell her of Joe's predicament, but knew afterward that it would have been better to do so; for she was to discover it in one of those unforeseen, brutal ways that so often accompany the disasters of the poor. One day a shivering small boy brought a note to the back door, and Grace herself happened to be the one to take it in. It would have been less cruel to give her a coal of living fire.
The folded paper was soiled, as if it had been passed from hand to hand. Its pencilled words were:
"You or she told Youl be got even with Curs you JOE."
Grace waited to speak of it until the doctor came. Then her dignity of manner was a revelation to Rosamund, who had yet to discover that elemental passions can sometimes be as silent as the ages that create them.
Grace looked unfalteringly at Ogilvie as she spoke. "Where have they got Joe?" she asked.
Rosamund exclaimed, and motioned to him not to reply; but he was wiser than she. His answer, as simple and direct as her question, gave no evidence of surprise. "In the city. The jail is stronger there."
"Will they let him out?"
"The evidence may not be enough to hold him. He is awaiting trial."
"Will we know if they let him out?"
"I think so."
Then she gave him the soiled paper, which he read and passed on to Rosamund. "He wrote that," she said. "Miss Rose hadn't ought to be here when he gets out."
She gave Rosamund a look of agonized tenderness, then left them. Presently they heard her walking in her room upstairs, up and down, up and down. Ogilvie shook his head when Rosamund asked him to go up to her.
"She must work it out alone," he said. "She's strong enough."
But Rosamund, uneasy, went to Mother Cary.
"Yes, she's strong enough," the old woman said, when she had heard all about it. "Land! She's got to be! An' she's jest got to fight it out by herself. Don't you try to cross her, honey, nor say anything to ease her, 'cause that ain't the way to treat hurts like that. Joe's her man, an' she'd lay down her life for him, ef 'twas only her own life; an' I reckon even ef she thought 'twould save his soul she couldn't 'a' found stren'th to tell on him. Yet that's what he thinks she done! Eh, me! The contrairy fools men like him can be when they sets out!"
"He's not worth her caring for! He's not worth it!"
"Land, no! I shouldn't think he was! But that ain't got a mite to do with it! Women folks don't care for them they ought to care for, jest because they ought to; nor they don't stop carin' when they ought to stop, neither. An' Joe bein' her man, she can't give a thought to whether he's worth it or not; she's jest got to go on lovin' him."
"But, oh!" the girl cried, "shouldn't you think his distrust would make her loathe him? To know herself a true and faithful wife, and to be distrusted! Oh!"
Mother Cary's eyes were very bright as she looked out of the window across the snowy field to where Pap was cutting down a tree for firewood. She took one of Rosamund's hands in hers before she spoke, and patted it.
"Yes, I reckon distrust must be about one of the hardest things to set down under," she said. "I know somethin' about it, 'cause time was when I distrusted Pap, though 'twas before we was married, o' course. I distrusted Pap's love, like poor Joe distrusts Grace's. I thought he couldn't possibly love me enough to last for ever an' always, me bein' crippled up like I be; an' I thought it wasn't fair to let him try. So I up an' run away. I tried to get to the station an' so back to the city. It was a long ol' walk for me, an' I had to hide all one night in a barn. But betwixt walkin' an' hobblin' an' crawlin' I got to the station at last; an' there was Pap a-waitin' to take me into his arms, which he did then an' there, good an' strong. I ain't never tried to get far from 'em sence!"